


An Interview With A Holmes

by LelianaVance (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: 221B Baker Street, Alternate Universe - Dark, Blood, Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Blood Loss, Bloodplay, Case, Dark Mycroft, Darklock, Dead Sherlock, F/M, Gore, Government, Investigation, Irregulars - Freeform, Johnlock - Freeform, Lestrolly, Little Hooper - Freeform, London, M/M, Magnussen, Molly - Freeform, Molstrade, Mycroft Being Mycroft, Mycroft Feels, Mycroft IS the British Government, Nicotine Patches, Original Character(s), Other, POV Multiple, Past and Present, Sherlock AU, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, Sherlock's Past, Shezza - Freeform, Survival, The First Case, The Soldier - Freeform, Trevor - Freeform, Vampire Mycroft, Viclock, Violence, an interview, anderson - Freeform, bad choices, guilty mycroft, holmes - Freeform, holmes bros, hooper - Freeform, mrs hudson - Freeform, mycroft being a badass, reveals and teases, sherlock's fan club, the fall of london, timehop, vampire, vampire attacks, vampirelock, vampiric, whatever happened to the consulting detective?, where is sherlock holmes?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-28 20:19:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3868456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/LelianaVance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>London has fallen, few stragglers yet cling to its decaying centre. Vampires have come to roost in the capital; bloodthirsty and with little control over their pained hunger.  But what everyone really wants to know is; whatever happened to Sherlock Holmes? Why didn't he stop this before it all started?</p><p>One girl wants the truth to be put out there before there is nobody left to hear it and one vampire is willing to tell it.</p><p>A Vampirelock, Johnlock story with added Lestrolly and Viclock!          Post-Magnussen!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

‘I see,’ said the vampire, narrowing his eyes at the girl across the table. For a long time he said nothing after that, merely stared a whole into her forehead. It was unsettling, cold and not at all comforting. It was like a staring into the fog-lights of a truck from the perspective of a doe. Captivating, yet ultimately, devastating. There was, however, gentility there too, concealed beneath that most predatory stare. Induced by equal amounts of amusement and curiosity. The girl had seen a vampire before but never this close, never under such… static conditions. It was like looking at white unbroken stone, fresh milk and bleached bone all at once. It was impossible and yet beautiful. Dangerous and alluring. He had welcomed her in agreeably enough and that in itself was suspicious. Vampires weren’t known for their hospitality.

The light above them suddenly flickered, crackled and threatened to plunge them into complete darkness, the air catching in her mouth. He could be over the table and at her throat in less than a second, drinking deep of her. Discarding her like all the others, whilst she ran red down his suit. The light buzzed back on. His eyes were still on her, unfazed. He hadn’t appeared to move. Their surroundings, she now dared to take note of, were cold, impersonal and wholly functional; a long wooden desk the centre piece of it all with muted grey walls and hard-backed black chairs. An office. Government, perhaps. 

‘Awfully brave aren’t you? Or very desperate. Well then, which is it?’ He chose to break eye contact then, his porcelain hands reaching out for a glass globe that nestled on his desk. His fingers were long, spindly like a spider’s leg, and all but covered the whole thing as if he were some great intelligence holding the world to ransom. A god surveying his dominion. A shudder ran the length of the girl’s spine. He smiled, his bottom lip bulging in the action. A revolting sight. One that often followed in massacre. 

‘Both, I imagine.’ The girl replied in mock confidence, thankful to be back on topic. ‘You know how it is out there. What is has become. There are some of us…well, there are people, that want to know how? Why? They want to know how he let this happen?’ She swallowed hard. The vampire was still playing with the glass globe, rolling it between his hands. He looked up thoughtfully at her sudden silence. Questioningly. ‘We need to know what happened to-’

‘Sherlock Holmes?’ The vampire’s voice was sweetly acidic as he uttered the name, stopping the girl in her tracks. Their eyes found one another again and for the merest of instances the girl discerned the imperceptible drop of his stony face. The momentary blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sadness. A journalist learnt to look out for things like that. Wielded them to great success. ‘He died. As I am sure you well know. It’s well documented in fact. Long before all this…chaos. Sherlock Holmes shan’t be your scapegoat this time. It’s time the people of Great Britain started looking inwardly.’

The girl licked her lips, trying unsuccessfully not to fidget as she attempted to bait him. ‘You know how it happened don’t you? How Mr Holmes died?’

‘I know everything,’ he replied, resting his hands upon the table and leaning closer towards her. ‘I know you haven’t had a bath in two weeks. That the last meal you had was a tin of mushy peas and that, although you would never admit it, you cannot stand them. I know that you cry yourself to sleep each night, the faces of all those dead friends playing out in continuously in your mind. Yes, I know how Sherlock Holmes died: I killed him.’

He didn’t as much as move an inch after that confession; became a statue of guilt and remission. A pasty, petrified effigy. His cold eyes were downcast, locked onto the unjudging inanimate wood. His lips were ever so slightly apart. His mind picking up different airwaves than those of the girl and the present. Any disturbance could send him spiralling, spinning fatally into darkness and upon her. The girl had to be careful now, had to choose her words carefully. Keep the vampire lulled and curious. Tend to his apparent guilt. 

‘He still has fans, you know? Errant Irregulars, devout followers, Molly Hooper. The truth could still mean something to them. It won’t save the world, but it might just save them.’ 

He didn’t show any signs of understanding or even any sense that he was aware of her presence. He was both a million miles and less than a metre away. 

‘What of the Doctor? John Watson. What happened to him?’ The girl asked, licking her lips. She knew she was walking on the edge of a knife here. Could do little to help it either. One swift movement was as likely as one wrong word in setting those oversized canines gorging on her. 

The vampire started at this, his whole head jerking back to attention. The memory that had so captured him lost like leaves in the wind. At least for now. 

John Watson. The Soldier.

‘Who are you? Who are you really? What was it you said…ah yes, Molly Hooper. I see the resemblance now. Mousey. Fidgety. Always and forever pining.’ The girl’s face flushed at this and she had to remind herself not to react to this. He was a vampire not a loose-lip trying to set her off. ‘She sent you here of course. To pry open the secret black vaults for any morsel on Sherlock Holmes. Pitiful really.’

He sat back in his chair, smoothing back his hair and smiling once more. His grin, snake-like and intrusive, as if he held the girl’s darkest secret on the tip of his tongue. The electric fizzled out once more and came back so quickly it was almost as if nothing had happened. But it had. The vampire was close now. His play-dough-like face, so capable of expression, was just centre metres from hers, his great squidgy nose all but unavoidable. He appeared faintly amused, curious again. The great black sorrow, that had taken him before, he hid well. 

‘If a story is what you want Little Hooper, then a story is what you shall receive. You really want to know why the great Sherlock Holmes did not come and save you all? You want to know how the consulting detective failed you? Why, my dear brother was under the influence of drugs of course. Selfish to the end.’


	2. An Old Friend?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pre-Vampire uprising: someone claiming to be a school friend of Sherlock's turns up a 221B with a case in tow. A case that feeds into history and the First Case.

Before he could even take his first step inside the apartment, a teary-eyed Mrs Hudson was standing before him. Balled up tissues in her right hand and haphazardly applied make-up running two thick lines down her haggard face.

‘Oh John! Thank god!’ 

‘Mrs Hudson?’ John closed the gap in an instant, his hand reassuringly at her elbow. ‘What is it?’

Her eyes rolled upwards towards their apartment. And, as if on cue, a loud bang resounded. It figured. What else could it be? The case-load had dried up and Lestrade hadn’t even so much as shown his face in over two months. Sherlock was spiralling. 

‘He’s been smoking and god knows what else,’ she explained with a sniffle. ‘Up and down he’s been like a yo-yo. Louder than ever. It was that man that set him off. After he left Sherlock set about tearing the place apart. I tried going up but…’ A shaky hand wiped away a fresh trail of tears. ‘He threw one of my mugs at me!’

The tantrum continued to play out above them; pots and pans slamming against walls and chairs being vigorously overturned. Mrs Hudson squeaked in fright.

John sighed deeply, eyes momentary closing. ‘You said a man came? A client?’

The questions seemed to calm her, keep her focused on him rather than the decreasing conditions of her walls and floor. She nodded. 

‘Oh, he was very handsome John.’ She said with a smile. ‘And had this American accent that just…well, it sent me all aflutter-’ 

‘Mrs Hudson.’ John interrupted, his patience running thin.

She told him then, in fits and starts, about the morning visitor. The knock had come midway through her fifth cup of tea. Two long, sure raps. Loud and confident. Not the usual sort to come a knocking; they were often anxious sort, uncertain whether they really wanted help or not. No, this man exuded confidence and had the charisma of an Oscar-winning actor. The face to match. Upon opening the door, he simply introduced himself and said he was a friend of Sherlock Holmes. The words fell from his mouth as if they were as simple as remarking upon the weather. As if Sherlock’s friends came to call on him every day. 

John held up a stalling hand, screwed his brows together in confusion. ‘But Sherlock doesn’t have any friends. He made that clear a long time ago.’

Mrs Hudson was whispering now as if the conversation had become conspiratorial. A twinkle in her eye as if she had stumbled onto some great secret. ‘That’s what I said to him. He just laughed and said an old friend. A school-friend.’

John simply guffawed at this, wiped at his nose uncomfortably. ‘Sherlock at school? That, I would pay to see.’

Before she could continue, however, an expressionless voice bellowed down to them. ‘Are you two planning on gabbing all day or just for the next hour? Tea would be nice. Biscuits too.’

The Doctor and the Landlady separated then, one to the kitchen and the teapot, forever the maid she so adamantly refused she was, the other set about climbing the stairs to the dragon’s lair. 

John opened the door tentatively, his eyes wary for some unseen projectile. Lucky for him, Sherlock had given up on his childish tantrum and was standing in plain sight before the window; still as a statue with arms stretched out either side of him like a silhouetted Christ the Redeemer. Thick clouds of smoke coiled about him, fogged up the entire room. Beakers and books mired the floor.

‘Jesus, Sherlock,’ John exclaimed stepping into the room, a hand over his mouth and nose. ‘At least open a bloody window!’

Sherlock spun round then and John ceased his advance entirely. Eyes as wide as two full, clear blue moons. Pyjama trousers and a silk bathrobe was all that garbed Sherlock’s lithe frame. Naked from the waist-up, John could see that his entire chest was covered in nicotine patches as if he were some strange humanized, bipedal Dalmatian. His storm-blue eyes found John’s but had that looking-a-world-away look about them they so often did as if he were contemplating a locked-room murder and a ten-year old cold case all whilst subconsciously mapping out his next musical endeavour. John pushed past him, threw the windows wide open. The hum of city-life wafted in; car-horns, loud chatter, distant music and the vibrant thrum of millions. 

‘So, who is he then?’ John asked, planting himself down in his well-worn chair. 

Sherlock’s eyes found him them, really found him, as if just noticing his presence. ‘Who?’ 

Shaking his head, John sighed again. ‘The American bloke!’

‘What American bloke?’ Sherlock said irritably. ‘What are you going on about?’

‘Mrs Hudson said that an American came to see you earlier. She also said that he-’

Sherlock spun about again, the tail of his bathrobe swooshing in his wake. ‘Oh she is sweet isn’t she? An innocent clay pigeon ripe for the shooting. Gullible, gullible Mrs Hudson.’ He offered nothing else on the matter.

‘Is that it then?’ John said shaking his head once more, ‘That all you going to say?’

He appeared to not take any notice of John then, just continued staring out the window, whilst all around him the fresh air sought battle with the poisonous. The noises from outside seemed to awaken him, soak into his very being and start him anew. London was in his blood. Set him going. Kept him right. He stormed off into his room without a word.

‘Don’t worry John,’ Sherlock explained when he came back into the room dressed in a suit jacket, trousers and white shirt. ‘I’ve not “fallen off the wagon” as you might put it.’ He dropped one of the small nicotine patches into John’s lap.

John picked up, turned it over in his hands and smiled. ‘Double-sided tape and… coloured paper?’

Sherlock grinned in return. ‘The man Mrs Hudson spoke of is pathological liar with a superiority complex. I needed him to think he was better off than me.’ He pulled on his coat. ‘Just for once in his life, John, this man needed to think he was above me. Needed to think of me as an unimportant and desperate lackey to do his bidding. Of course, it is the other way round. This is the case, John.’

He stepped out the door, a spring in his step.

‘What case?’ John shouted, jumping to his feet.

The voice reached him from down in the hallway. ‘The First Case.’

John managed to catch him this time just before he jumped into the cab, well versed in his disappearing acts now. ‘Sherlock, what do you mean? Who is he?’

Sherlock’s face was solemn, stern and a little vulnerable. ‘Magnussen was a bully, Moriarty a master tactician, Victor Trevor is a monster. And I intend to slay him.’

He shut the door then and the black cab was quickly lost amongst the rush-hour London rabble. 

John Watson was, for the first time in a long time, unsure what to do. When he was back in his chair, the day’s newspaper on his lap, his phone vibrated:

DON’T TELL MYCROFT. HE WILL KILL HIM.  
SH.


	3. The Blood-Slide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock follows up on a mysterious blood-slide handed to him by Victor Trevor.

Victor Trevor’s presence here changed everything. It was like a vault-door had been opened onto his past and there was nothing he thought more detestable. His life pre-consulting was something he denied existed. Sherlock Holmes was a man of the moment, never to second guess or utter the phrase “in hindsight”. And yet, Victor being here and calling on him brought back the memories that hurt the most. Sherlock would use his presence as a way of settling an old familial debt. 

The First Case had returned to cast its lengthy shadow.

The cab finally pulled up outside St Bartholomew’s Hospital and Sherlock took the path of least resistance, making it to the lab and the doting woman that was forever at his beck and call in mere minutes. Something was different today though. Molly Hooper was not standing to attention at his arrival, was instead in mid-conversation with…

‘What are you doing here?’ Sherlock blurted.

‘As much as you think the world revolves round Sherlock Holmes,’ the man answered gruffly, ‘there are other cases Molly helps us with.’

Sherlock snorted at this and set about making himself at home with the scientific instruments and utensils, grabbing at a microscope and pulling something out from within his pocket. A blood-slide. A gift from Victor. Proof, he claimed. Sherlock slid it beneath the ocular device and began twisting the knobs until he flung his head back, hair jolting on end. He added an ‘Aha!’ but they still showed him no attention, still were going over some boring medical report. ‘Fascinating!’ This time, Molly caught his eye, hurried on over with a smile from ear to ear as if her earlier rebuke had been as far as she had been willing to go in avoiding her feelings for Sherlock. A poor display of self-restraint unlikely to improve in the foreseeable future. Lestrade merely sighed and had about him his perpetual forlorn, lost look. 

‘What is it?’ She asked. ‘What have you found? Can I help?’

He pocketed the blood-slide and pushed himself back to his feet. ‘Oh, it’s nothing.’ 

Lestrade came on over then, eyes rolling. ‘Let’s hear it then. Maybe us ordinary people will think it's worth knowing.’

At that moment, Sherlock wished John was here. When he queried he did so with finesse and even offered his own thoughts and opinions. These two were like shop-bought mannequins waiting to be positioned and dressed. Thoughtless and droll. 

‘Like I said: nothing. Just proof that the dead are up and about walking amongst us.’

‘I’m sorry, what?’ Lestrade asked as Sherlock, with a flourish of his long coat, got to his feet. ‘What do you mean the dead are walking?’ 

‘Does it ever annoy you?’ Sherlock then asked him quite seriously. ‘All those questions that twirl about in your tiny brain. Does it physically hurt? Or are you just attuned to it now?’ 

* * *

He was already there when Sherlock pushed through the doors, already on his second cup of coffee and already charming a naïve waitress loitering round his table. Sherlock ignored all this and simply pushed himself past them and planted himself opposite Victor Trevor. 

‘Tea. White.’ He ordered without so much as looking at her, his gaze firmly on Victor. Who looked equally annoyed and amused at his sudden appearance. 

‘Yes…’ Victor added, his quick green eyes scanning her nametag. ‘Louise. A tea for my good friend here, please.’ His eyes fell to Sherlock. ‘It doesn’t cost for pleasantries Sherlock.’

The waitress smiled at him, shot daggers at an ignorant Sherlock who, for all intents and purposes, had erased her existence from his mind as quickly as it had clogged it up. Useless information. 

‘So,’ Victor began, pushing his half-empty mug to the side to allow room for his hands. ‘Did you check? Do you believe me now?’ His accent was Scottish now. Not his native inflection but much, much closer to home. 

Sherlock pulled out the blood-slide and pushed it across the greasy surface of the table. Making a purposeful effort to hold his hand out a few seconds longer than necessary to ensure Victor caught sight of the minute tremor.

‘And?’ Victor asked filling the silence. ‘What did you find? I’m right aren’t I? He's alive isn't he?.’ 

His shamrock-green eyes widened in wonder as Sherlock nodded. He picked up the slide and held it up to the light, a million dollar smile blossoming on his face. He needed the verification as much as anyone, not quite a true believer himself.

‘Indeed, for once, it seems that you are,’ Sherlock replied as he suddenly rose to his feet. ‘Good luck.’

And with that he was gone, striding purposefully towards the door, a handful of heads turning at his abruptness. His lips mouthing a countdown from five as he walked. He only managed to arrive at three before Victor called him back. Sherlock Holmes smiled before turning back to the now desperate client. 

‘I need your help.’ The words were like liquid gold, like Beethoven’s fabled symphony, like a line from which a fisherman can pull and tease however so he likes. Sherlock pulled. Teasing would come much later.

‘Why Victor when have you ever needed my help? And now twice in one day. You must be slipping. Family cases? Messy. Not my cup of tea, you might say.’ Sherlock replied as the waitress came by and placed his order upon the table. She looked baffled but Victor swiftly shooed her away, his earlier advances forgotten.

Sherlock turned again but didn’t so much as make it a step this time, baited as Victor was. 

‘No, of course not. Your habits are much more,’ Victor caught his eye then, his reptilian gaze unflinching, ‘singular. Harder to obtain. Expensive, even. I don’t suppose even Mycroft…’

‘Are you attempting to play a desperate man, Victor?’ Sherlock replied sternly, the gap between them now closed. The tables expertly turned to ensure Victor believed he had the upper hand. 

Victor pushed the cup of tea towards him. ‘Why no, I’m attempting to employ one.’

Sherlock sat down begrudgingly. The channel was now open between them. The Money manipulating the Needy. The First Case and the new case now perfectly aligned.  
‘Why me?’

Victor smiled then, toothsome and full. A smile that had greeted Sherlock so many times in childhood, despite whether he wanted it or not, a smile that betokened danger and deceit. A monster’s smile that needed to be cleaved off.

‘Oh, there was only ever you Sherlock. These things come around don’t they? This is how it all started – you and me – this is how it has to end.’ He leant in then, the next words tumbling out his mouth like hushed whispers. ‘Do you remember that day? The cold battering winds and that tide; the worst weather on record wasn’t it? I’m sure it was. Winds like daggers. Waves like towers. I can still taste the salt, you know?’

‘I remember.’ Sherlock’s reply un-emotive and blank.

‘Of course you do. Those were hard times. For us all. Me, you and Mycroft. Is he here? Will he come? It would be so good to be three once more.’

Sherlock drank deep of his tea. The past is thorny, a path overgrown over time and better left untrodden. Horrors and secrets are nestled in its darkened undergrowth, better left forgotten. Sherlock knew the wounds he would be reopening by taking that painful path, knew the lengths to which he would have to descend if this was to be put to bed for once and all. Victor Trevor was well worth it.

‘I haven’t seen Mycroft in ten years,’ Sherlock lied after a time. ‘A family gathering. Awful as you can well imagine. Full of those ridiculous buffets with the small sausages and voile Vons. Now, tell me everything about your father. Go all the way back. Don’t miss a single thing.’

‘But you know everything.’

It was Sherlock’s time to smile, shrug his shoulders and say honestly: ‘Drugs.’


	4. The Body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A body and a brother turn up to muddy the waters of a case that pierces into Sherlock's murky pre-Baker Street past.

The London skyline rippled and warped across the cabs windscreen as it cut a hasty path through the capital. A thin drizzle had begun to dapple the streets and an army of clouds blocked out the sun. It was a typical British summer day.

‘Who is he then?’ John asked at length, the question had been bugging him for hours now. 

Sherlock Holmes having a school-friend? It was too good to be true. Sure, Sherlock said this Victor was a liar but there was definitely some kind of a history between the two of them. Knowing Sherlock as he did, John presumed it to be prickly. 

Sherlock’s reply was simple, matter-of-fact: ‘A murderer.’

John was momentarily stunned, hadn’t expected such an honest and straightforward reply. Sherlock often kept things close to his chest – probably still was right now – but this was something. Still, Sherlock looked a little forlorn, a little detracted. Not in his usual big-headed, everyone is inferior way either. 

‘You didn’t mention that,’ John said unsuccessfully trying to alleviate the tension. ‘I would’ve brought my gun.’

Sherlock merely grunted reply as Big Ben sailed past his window. The rain was making a grey world outside, a dreary atmosphere inside.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ John asked.

Sherlock strangely nodded. ‘Of course; Lestrade called, said they found a body stuffed in a bin in an alley. He hasn’t a clue and needs help. Story of his life. Told me it is an odd one and none too messy; bloody cobbles and pallid skin. Donovan’s been sick too.’ He said the last with a smile.

‘That’s not what I-’ John began but shook it off. ‘Really?’

They both, despite themselves, laughed at this.

‘What about Victor’s case?’ John said as the cab pulled to a stop next to a train of blue-flashing police cars. ‘Shouldn’t we be focusing on that?’

Sherlock didn’t answer, just jumped out the car, leaving John to pay, and ducked underneath the police-tape, heading brazenly right into the crime scene. 

Lestrade was waiting for them, offered them a curt nod before leading them round the corner. He seemed less willing to Sherlock’s presence than usual although John couldn’t possibly think why. Sherlock pissed more people off each day than he had had hot dinners.

‘Which bin?’ Sherlock asked, pushing past him. Already knowing which one. 

Lestrade looked dumbstruck. ‘What?’ He looked at John confused. ‘How do you know he’s in a bin?’

‘You didn’t tell him?’ John asked him looking bewildered for split-second. It was Sherlock Holmes after all.

‘No I bloody well didn’t,’ Lestrade barked as they followed after him. ‘Sherlock, how in the hell did you know the vic was in the bloody bin?’

Sherlock offered Lestrade no answer, just leant over the rim of the large green bin, cataloguing all the facts in an instant. Submerged in black bags teeming with filth and flies, a pallid face and a porcelain hand could be seen breaking the grimy surface. The eyes were full-white and well beyond vacant and the lips dry and cracked. The hand was bent at an obtuse angle, the nails clogged with dirt. 

Sherlock pushed back from the bin, finished. ‘London Underground employee. Ten years, maybe fifteen, long-serving either way. Respected. Forty-seven maybe forty-eight years old. Unmarried. No, scratch that, divorced. Closet homosexual, I expect. John?’ He held a hand out to John, invitingly.

Both John and Greg were staring at him, disbelieving. John made no effort to approach.

‘Oh come on! Look at the his eyes and skin, he doesn’t see the outside much, let alone the sun: Underground. Lips, dry because of all the heat down there. Bit of a leap but the anaemic skin sold it. Hand, faint discolouration on the ring-finger, blatantly divorced. Gay? Well, just look at those nails. A white-collar man, with nails like that?’

John smirked despite it all. Didn’t realize he was standing in a pool of blood until an unsteady approaching Donovan pointed it out. 

Sherlock and John shared a look and a laugh. ‘Unwell Donovan?’ Sherlock asked between sniggers. 

Lestrade and she shared a word. A problematic word by their expressions.

‘Oh for Christ sake!’ Lestrade groaned as he took a phone call. ‘Another one?’

‘Well?’ Donovan said, coming to stand by them again. ‘What astounding deductions have you got for us, Freak?’

John let Sherlock and Donovan’s bickering fade into the background as he walked about the bin, taking care to side-step the rapidly increasing red-pool. Something had caught his eye, something glinting in the distance. Something small and out-of-place. The police-lights had illuminated it, the flashing bulbs catching it and reflecting a white glimmer. Bending down and reaching with his left hand, John grabbed at the cold, smooth thing. Holding it up to the light, it was plain to see it had been planted there. A calling-card. It was too out of place. Not a single speck of dirt on it. Just a circle of red.

‘You saw it too?’ Sherlock said, coming to stand beside him. ‘I hoped you would.’

John held it between thumb and forefinger. ‘It’s another-’

‘Blood-slide, yes. Another drop of Mr Trevor, no doubt. A trail, John. The “deceased” is leaving us clues. Bit clichéd but it’s better than a body in a bin; dime a dozen. These,’ He took the slide from John and pocketed it. ‘These are altogether something new. Brilliant, isn’t it? Like discovering a new strand of the Asteraceae.’

* * * * *

Mycroft was waiting for them, John didn’t need Sherlock to mess around with the doorknocker to know that. He could sense it in the way Sherlock tensed, it was new and no doubt had a connection to all this Victor Trevor business. Mycroft’s presence merely annoyed him, this was something else entirely. This was something big. 

‘John, good to see you. New moisturiser, I see.’ Mycroft purred as they entered. ‘Sherlock.’ He said his brother’s name far more formal, removed even. Sherlock didn’t even deign to reply, had stalked off into his room. John just rolled his eyes. If he asked how they knew every little thing about him he would never get a chance to say anything else. Troublingly enough, it was becoming his norm. The Holmes brothers were his doctors, his psychologists, his personal trainers, his pharmacists and so on. They diagnosed every little thing about him before he even knew about it.

John sighed. He had a hunch on why he was here. ‘Let me guess, you know don’t you? You know about-’ 

Mycroft got to his feet, closed the gap between them and locked onto John’s eyes. ‘I know everything John. I knew before the man himself knew. I know about the slides and I know about this ridiculous Shezza persona my brother is resolute in continually trotting out. I know that this thing crosses borders and has very little to do with a father who faked his own death to escaper parenthood. What I am more interested in is what you know?’

The Doctor’s brows furrowed at this. ‘What I know?’ He sighed. ‘Very little. As usual.’ 

Mycroft’s smile in response was frighteningly sweet, meant to be predatory but more slovenly. A face that could upheave parliament, intelligence agencies and the top one per cent, but could do little to stir the army Doctor. 

‘You think me incapable do you not, Doctor Watson?’ Mycroft asked, moving over towards the window, grimacing at the lack of cleanliness as he did. ‘A fat cat without any claws.’

John shook his head, realized Mycroft couldn’t see him and added a grunt of misunderstanding. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘A capital one offense. Namely murder.’ He answered, pushing back the curtain with the tip of his umbrella. Outside, three overly inconspicuous passers-by took great pains not to look upwards. A woman with a vacant pink pram, a bald headed man pretending to be on the phone and a suit-and-tie in a parked Mercedes. Mycroft sighed once more. ‘Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. What have you got yourselves into now?’

‘Victor’s men?’ Sherlock asked as he came into the room. ‘Caught sight of them an hour ago, been on our tail since he arrived this morning.’ 

‘Arrived two days before him. First class,’ Mycroft added. ‘Mr Trevor has been making a name for himself in the United States. A fake name, as you can well imagine. Randall-’ 

‘-Vincett. Yes, yes, all very impressive Mycroft. About time you were leaving?’ Sherlock finished throwing himself face down on the couch. 

For once, John noted, Mycroft seemed to accede to Sherlock and approach the door. His hand, however, wavered. This childish sibling rivalry, John thought, was wearing a bit thin now.

‘What are your intentions with....Victor Trevor, brother?’ 

Sherlock’s reply was lost to the back of the chair, an unintelligible mumble that he didn’t seem to want to rectify. 

‘Sherlock.’ Mycroft’s voice was firm now. ‘You do know that this is all just a game for him? Well-planned and, dare I say, unpredictable. He’s playing you and I both Sherlock and he doesn’t even know I’m in the game yet. The blood-slides were a tad theatrical but…’ 

John balked at this, swallowing hard and shaking his head. ‘Umm. I’m sorry what?’

‘Oh yes John, very adorable,’ Mycroft laughed at John’s puzzlement. ‘Very good, I needed that. And Sherlock,’ He looked over towards his still prone and motionless brother. ‘He is a fanatic. Satellites lost sight of him for a few months before now in Romania. Take of that what you will.’

And with that, the elder Holmes left, humming some age-old tune as he did. Sherlock became animated as soon as he heard the front door close. 

‘Did you really not think Victor was behind the murder?’ Sherlock stated with huge demeaning smile plastered on his pale face.


	5. Interim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> INTERIM I: In the chaotic present, vampire Mycroft's tale is halted by a crash and, whilst he goes to investigate, Little Hooper is left all alone.

The vampire stopped then, his head turning to the side as if he heard something from a great distance. Without his omnipotent words filling the chasm of silence, Little Hooper felt the chill run up her arms once more. The cold office had dematerialised during the tale, his purring tone taking her back to a place full of skulls, Bunsen burners and books. A warm place full of hope and the living; of food and love. She was about to ask why he had stopped but he was gone. One second he was there and the next there was nothing occupying that hardback black chair. 

‘Mr Holmes?’ She asked in a voice as quiet as possible. 

A loud crash from above made her jump, scan the room for some sign of danger. But there was nothing there. Just the stale air and the dust of decades filming over objects from a dead past. Swallowing hard, Little Hooper got to her feet and took a step towards the door. It was open but no light pierced its blackness. A pile of rubble sat before it, undisturbed for what looked like years. The office was perhaps the best retained place in all of London, barely disturbed. Just in need of a good clean. Time-locked just like its inhabitant. 

A second crash boomed and Little Hooper, despite herself, squeaked. It was past sundown now and she should have gone back home a long time ago. Her people would be worried. Her father ready to storm out against the hordes of the undead just to see his girl home safe and sound. Her breathing became haggard just thinking of them. Was this it? Was this the last place she would ever see? That cold, vampiric face the last to hold her gaze?

‘Pretty little thing,’ A velvety voice declared from behind her. 

She spun on the spot, her eyes wide and her hands shaking like a single leaf in a maelstrom. Leaning on the large table was her death. He was big. Broad and muscular. Six foot; maybe more. And had appeared from absolutely nowhere; not a sound nor scent or even a sixth sense to mark his arrival.

‘Nice little hidey-hole,’ The thick-necked vampire noted, taking a single step forward. His smile was bordered by red. It didn’t take a consulting detective to know he had recently fed. ‘Not going to run? I like it when they run. They don’t get far mind. But it’s still a rush, you know?’ He had a thick, London accent. A fellow native then, once upon a time.

Another step.

Little Hooper couldn’t move, was in complete paralysis. The teeth – too big to fit in his mouth – punctured his lower lip and dribbled blood down his stubbled chin. His eyes were like hot coals burning into her very soul. Vampires, much like humans, were very individual – had their own ticks and addictions and ways of going about things. This was one was brutish nature personified. A bald boxer boosted by unnatural blood. He loomed and terrified; a natural imposer.

‘Quaker, huh?’ He said, his hand reaching for a stray strand of her dark brown hair. Motionless they stood, his fingers clutching that single hair for what felt like twenty minutes. Her eyes found every item in the room save for him. She studied a pile of books in the corner for what felt like aeons: Indomitable Will by Alahaz Lanken, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Opus 66 by Lady J. Petrie and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. The vampire didn’t strike her much as a reader of horror but immortality can do that to anyone. Only so much water in the well. The distractions were pale at best however and no matter where or what she looked at, his breath on her face and that cold touch made her skin crawl.

Then his fingers were at her cheek, stroking and caressing. She shuddered anew. He smelt deeply of her then, his nose up close to her face, hair and chest. His eyes closing as the scent of her filled from within, tempting and alluring.

‘Runner or not,’ He said, pulling back and brandishing a horrific grin. ‘Virgin is always good.’

Her neck was unfeeling, as all parts of the body are until they are touched, bruised or felt, and then wet and painful. Sharp canines tearing apart the soft, vulnerable flesh. Quick as their kind was, he was by her side and at her neck before she could even notice he had even moved. Red tributaries ran down her front, soiling her yellowed top and dribbling down her chest. She was still shaking but a newer, deeper sensation blossomed from within; an ecstasy unheard of, rarely achieved. She arched her neck back and moaned, moaned aloud as under-dwellers never could, moaned unafraid of what would come looking. It was already here. 

Little Hooper could actually feel the essence of what was her draining, draining from her little stores and into him. Every breath she took seemed to flow into him, every single of fleck of her existence being subsumed by a grander mass. The world around her started to blur and then take on a dream-like quality before becoming distant and insubstantial, as if seen through a looking glass a million miles away. 

There was only the rapid beating of her heart and the passing of her life-blood. 

Little Hooper was flying one minute and then cascading down onto the cold ground the next. A second body falling beside her. She tried looking but could only see a foggy outline. Again and again she tried blinking away the delirium until finally she saw him. The vampire Holmes with a blackened runt of a heart in his hands and a beard of black blood. He was terrifying in a complete different way.

He smiled at her. The gesture equally warm and pitying and then there was black; all-encompassing and drowning.

* * * * * *  
Breaking the surface of grogginess, Little Hooper found herself light-headed and back in her seat facing the vampire. He was immaculate again; the blood from his chin wiped and his entire three-piece suit without a crease or errant red drip despite his recent kill. His stone-white face was like the light from a lighthouse in the murky waters of her mind. Shark-like eyes holding her above the surface that so wanted to claim her once more. 

‘The tale is not over yet, Little Hooper,’ Mycroft said, raising an impossibly undamaged glass to his lips. The contents dark red and thick as ketchup. ‘You do still want to hear it, do you not? I have found myself quite taken with the telling of it so I do hope you are attentive.’ 

He drank greedily of the glass, swirling it round as he did. Little Hooper’s puzzlement brought her away from unconsciousness. Realization finally taking hold… 

Pointing towards the glass, Little Hooper cried, ‘Is that…is that mine?’ 

The vampire laughed at this, smiled at her with blood-stained teeth. ‘Unfortunately not. This particular well sprung up from our dearly departed friend. A little sour for my particular taste however.’

Realigning herself upon her chair, Little Hooper looked about her for signs of her attacker. A deep fear slowly uncoiling once more in the pit of her stomach, a dormant python ready to strike. But, he was nowhere to be seen.

‘He is quite dead, I can assure you.’

She turned to face him again. ‘I thought a vampire’s blood was poisonous to another vampire?’

‘Not entirely, well, not to all of us,’ He broke his eye-contact and scanned about the room as if trying to locate the words to which to enlighten her. They found nothing of substance and so he just used what he thought she would understand. ‘Think of it as diet Pepsi – not as sweet, nor as fulfilling, and yet, can still do in a pinch. Doesn’t slake the thirst outright but dulls it monetarily.’

She was still in shock, his words barely absorbed. There was something unsaid between them now; a incorporeal chain that united them in life and un-life. He had saved her. Should she not thank him? The waters were slowly becoming muddied and the reason she had sought him out hadn’t even yet begun to be truly revealed. 

‘You still haven’t told me what happened to him…’ She stated, her mind deciding to keep at the task at hand. All these other complications could be dealt with accordingly after.

The vampire, his eyes aglow, leant forward. ‘The story is in its infancy, Little Hooper. A tale is the sum of its parts and this narrative has a great many. Her Majesty’s city lies broken and barren around us, it didn’t happen in a single day.’

**Author's Note:**

> Subsequent chapters will be set during the first days of the vampire plague with the occasional present-day interim with Little Hooper and Vampire Mycroft. Hope you stay to witness it :)


End file.
